Data was spread across a diverse set of media from CD's, Tape in differing formats, Windows Servers and a collection of NAS devices. Not all of this data was on-line, making it difficult for scientists to retrieve historic projects for analysis.

CD-DataHouse Limited implemented an Active Archive System where Hundreds of Terabytes of data reside on disk, but Petabytes of data reside on Tape.

Yet - The Tape appears to be an 'on-line file system', as if it was disk, though with slower retrieval times.

The system removed the need for a major disk upgrade, and alleviated the need for traditional backup processes entirely.